Station to Station: Japan Route Guide

Ask the internet how to get from one place in Japan to another and you usually get one of two answers: a route planner that returns a departure time with no context, or a guidebook line that says “the nearest station is X” and leaves you to work out the rest. Neither tells you which transfer is a trap, how long the walk at the far end really is, or that the bus number printed in most older guides no longer goes there.

This page collects the journeys travellers actually make and writes each one out end to end. Every route below is checked against the operator’s own published information — Tokyo Metro’s line pages for station numbers, the Kyoto City Transportation Bureau for bus routes and fares, and the temples’ and tourism boards’ own access pages — rather than copied from other travel sites.

Tokyo

Getting to Tsukiji

Getting to Ginza

Getting to Roppongi

Kyoto

Getting to Kiyomizu-dera

Getting to Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavilion)

Osaka

Getting to Dotonbori

Getting to Tennoji

How these routes are checked

Each route is written from the operator’s published information, not from other guides. Station numbers come from Tokyo Metro’s own line pages, Kyoto bus routes and the flat city fare come from the Kyoto City Transportation Bureau, and access details for individual sites come from the temple, shrine or tourism board that runs them. Where we could not confirm a detail — the exact walking time between two specific exits, say, or which direction of a loop line is quicker — the route says so instead of guessing.

That matters more than it sounds. Nearly every English-language guide still tells you to take Kyoto City Bus #101 from Kyoto Station to Kinkaku-ji. It no longer goes there: #101 now runs as a limited-express service towards Kiyomizu-dera, and the temple’s own access page lists only buses #12, #59, #205 and M1 at the Kinkakuji-michi stop. Catching the wrong bus at Kyoto Station costs you the better part of an hour. Finding and fixing that kind of drift is the point of this page.

Routes last checked: September 2026.

Station to Station: How to Get Around Japan